The article analyses the results of mass survey conducted in the framework of the project of the Volkswagen Foundation “Bi- and multilingualism between intensification of conflict and conflict resolution. Ethno-linguistic conflicts, language politics and contact situations in post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia”. Research’s aim was to understand to what extent the state language policy in the area of mass media and cultural sphere meet the expectations of the citizens of Ukraine. It underlines regionally marked attitude towards the strategy of language policy: the Western part of the country prefers Ukrainian language, South – Russian, and Center and North take intermediate positions.
The article contains preliminary considerations on the principles of the standardization of geographical names in Poland, in particular the names of physiographic objects. The notion of a country’s language policy has been referred to as one of its tools is the standardization of geographical names. The general objectives of the Polish language policy were listed as such: the assertion of legal status of the Polish language as the first language in Poland; the assertion of conditions for the development of national and ethnic minority languages in the country; the construction of a Polish- language national and state community. Legal acts concerning Polish language and geographical nomenclature were indicated. It was stated that the assumed effect of political and linguistic actions should be to develop a nomenclature in correct Polish, one which is pragmatically effective, rooted in tradition and, as a result of this study, one should expect to achieve an optimal course of the language communication process in each communicative community. Then, the criteria of the linguistic correctness of geographical names applied to date were discussed and similarities indicated in the standardization procedure with regards to geonyms and specialist terms. The rules of the detailed standardization procedure will be presented in the second part of the article
The article summarizes the results of sociolinguistic study of the language environment of secondary schools in Ukraine, on the basis of which the conclusion about its bilingualism was made. It is proved that the quality of the language environment does not correspond to the declared school status. Changes in the assessment of the language environment of schools from 2006 to 2017 are identified and it is concluded that it is possible to develop recommendations for improving the legal support of the use of languages in the Ukrainian education.
The article examines the language biographies of two generations of a family of German origin in the Czech Republic from the end of World War II to the present day. The content analysis of the biographies is based on the application of the narrative interview method developed in qualitative sociology. The analysis of the data obtained by this method follows the stages in the language use of the two informants in coping with the challenge of the language policies of the state.